The Dutch Connection
by EvilTulip
Summary: A ‘common’ murder leads the team into the world of mafia. Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. And sometimes, fiction comes pretty close to the truth.
1. Teaser

**A/N: **Most of this story is based on facts. Therefore, I will not state my sources. Self-protection. And I finally have some time to write again!

**Summa****ry: **A 'common' murder leads the team into the world of the mafia. Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. And sometimes, fiction comes pretty close to the truth.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the CSI:Miami team.

**The Dutch Connection: Teaser**

A quiet, peaceful part of the Everglades was rudely interrupted by the sound of a car that didn't belong here. It wasn't fit for this area, this off-road part of this huge swamp. An SUV could've looked like it belonged here, but a town car… that was extraordinary here. Suddenly, the car pulled over and two men, both dressed in a pin-striped, hand-made Italian suit stepped out of it, looking carefully were to walk as to not leave any trace of their 'business' here. The driver opened the trunk of the car and the other man reached inside. It took a few minutes of struggling before the both of them pulled a gagged and bound man from the trunk. Blood had run down the back of his head. The passenger laid two of his fingers on the victim's neck. A few seconds later, he nodded at the driver. The driver smiled in a cruel way and while the passenger took the keys that the driver had left in the lock of the trunk to start the engine of the car again, the driver attempted to throw the victim into the reeds of the swamp. The driver then shooed the passenger away from the driver's seat and took over the steering wheel, ready to drive off. There was only one thing left to do. The passenger took a small cell phone from his inner pocket and dialed a number that every citizen of Miami, every citizen of the United States knew: 9-1-1. Afterwards, he made another call. This time to call in the drop-off. He tossed away the cell phone and jumped into the car. There would be no trace of them at all, except for the tire threads, but that would be taken care of: the car was for them also a disposable item.  
The peaceful smell of the swamp slowly was replaced by the stench of decomposition.

Horatio Caine looked at the reeds that caressed the dead man's body. The wind made the reeds bend that way and Horatio knew that, but somehow it still amazed him how sometimes nature seemed to take care of those who had been murdered in a way they didn't deserve.  
"I found a cell phone!" the clear voice of one of Horatio's most trusted CSIs, Calleigh Duquesne, sounded. Horatio looked up and around to see her holding a black cell phone. He nodded and took a few large steps, to avoid messing up the crime scene.  
"Check for the last calls made" he ordered her to do. Calleigh nodded and after a few times tapping the keys of the phone, she showed him a number that seemed vaguely familiar to him.   
"Frank?" He asked the detective.  
"Horatio" the detective answered. Horatio showed him the phone number.  
"Yeah, that's from some cocaine trafficking guy in Coconut Grove." Answered the detective. "Doesn't surprise me, the vic's a store owner that has been threatened by some drug traffickers before."  
Horatio nodded and turned to Alexx. She looked at him.   
"Execution-style" she only told him.  
Frank Tripp looked at Horatio. "You thinking organized crime?"  
"I'm thinking" Horatio paused for a second, a habit that was well on it's way to become a familiar one to the CSIs. "Mafia".


	2. Act I

**The Dutch Connection: Act I**

Ryan walked up to the canal to have a look at where his fellow CSI was. Someone had called in that some car that could probably be tied to another crime had been dumped in the canal and after having been informed by Horatio that it could be that this was the car that was used to dump a body in the Everglades, Ryan and his colleague Eric had been sent to find out if the car had been dumped here.  
Since Eric was the team's frogman, he was the one to take a look under water. Deep inside, Ryan was pretty glad that he wasn't the one to dive in the canals of Miami.  
A few minutes later, Eric's head suddenly appeared from the depths of the canal and he looked at Ryan, nodding. Ryan nodded back at him and waved at the guys that could pull the car from the canal.  
Not even a quarter of an hour later, Ryan and Eric were completely absorbed by the investigation of the car.  
"Do you think it's true?" Ryan asked. Eric looked up.  
"What?"  
"About the mafia"  
"Oh. Well, Miami's always been a favorite town to all sorts of organized crime. The mafia's no difference"  
Ryan nodded. "True. But I think this has never happened before, right? Dumping a body, calling it in and then dumping the car? I mean, calling it in doesn't seem very mafia-ish."  
Eric laughed a little. "Perhaps they're trying to make a statement" he suddenly grabbed a pair of tweezers and Ryan noticed how Eric picked up a few long, blonde hairs from the back seat.  
"Follicles are still attached" he said, somewhat satisfied. Ryan nodded.  
"And the victim's not a blonde. Do you think there's another victim?"  
Eric looked at his colleague. "Dunno. Let's hope not"  
They searched the car for more clues, but there were no more clues to be found except for some blood stains in the truck that were almost certainly the vic's.

Horatio quietly entered the A/V lab, to see how far Tyler and Calleigh had gotten with tracking down the precise address from where the cell phone came. Tyler was explaining to Calleigh that he used the cell sites and the area in which they picked up the signal from the phone. Horatio noticed some blue-colored transparent circles appearing on a digitalized map of Miami on one of the monitors. Finally, Tyler pointed at one of the blue circles.  
"The cell phone came from this area"  
Horatio found it was time to ask a question. "Can you also find out who also called from that area?"  
Tyler turned around. "That's a little hard to find out, Lieutenant. I'll give it my best shot."  
Horatio nodded and walked off, as he saw Frank Tripp walking through one of the corridors.  
"Frank" he said. Tripp turned around and looked at him.  
"Horatio. I've been looking for you."  
"Yes… It appears the call has indeed been made to a house in Coconut Grove. In fact, the cell phone itself also was in that house today."  
Frank looked at the Lieutenant. "Yeah. I asked around a bit, and it turns out that some think that coke dealer has got something to do with the mafia. Even though it's not always considered their style to call in a murder to the police, it has been done before to make a statements. And there are, as you know, more branches of mafia. In Italy alone there exist three very powerful branches, the Cosa Nostra, the Camorra and the 'Ndrangheta. And lots of smaller branches."  
Horatio nodded. "Which one do you think we're dealing with?"  
Frank thought for a second. "I'm guessing 'Ndrangheta. They're known to traffic cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela to Italy, via either Spain, Belgium or the Netherlands. Since it's a coke dealer in the Grove…"  
Horatio nodded again. "Thank you, Frank." He noticed two of his CSIs stepping out of the elevator. Horatio left Frank and walked up to the CSIs.  
"What have you got?"  
For once, Ryan let Eric do the talking. "Few strands of hair with the follicles still attached and some blood. The car's in the garage, we sent a photo of the tire threads to Tyler"  
"Get that to DNA. I want to know what's going on out there."  
Ryan and Eric nodded and made their way to DNA. Horatio walked up to one of the windows and looked at the city that he was supposed to protect. What was going on? He noticed Frank and an idea popped into his mind. Only, this plan was supposed to be kept a secret. Horatio knew enough of the mafia to know that his chances of catching one of them were very small. After all, if they hadn't realized yet that the house in the Grove could easily be tracked down, the chances that they had their sources inside PD were still big and therefore they would find out things soon enough.  
"Frank" Horatio said. "What's the 'Ndrangheta's way of working? What do they do?"

Eric looked at Valera. She was preparing DNA samples of the follicles from the strands of hair and preparing samples from the blood, while Eric and Ryan waited for the results.  
"I'm not working any faster if you keep watching" she said. Ryan smiled.  
"We just like to watch"  
Valera looked at the now follicle-less strands of hair on the lit table. "Here's some other thing to watch" she handed Eric and Ryan the strands. "The roots seem darker. I think your vic dyed his or her hair."  
"Our vic's not a blonde" Eric replied. Valera looked at him.  
"Then I'd certainly take a look at those hairs"

"That's certainly dyed hair" Ryan confirmed some twenty minutes later. Eric looked at him.  
"Hmm. You think Tyler already has the results on the tire threads?"  
"Divide and conquer" Ryan said. "What if you go to Tyler to see if he's got any results on the tire threads, then I'll see Valera for the DNA results."  
Eric nodded and both parted ways.

Calleigh entered the autopsy room to see Alexx for the bullets from the vic's head. Alexx was glad to see the CSI in full health.  
"You know, all that with the mafia scares me" Alexx confessed.  
Calleigh smiled at the coroner. "Don't be scared. If they don't have a reason to kill you, they won't kill you. And even if they do have a reason to kill you, they only kill you when you're posing a threat."  
Alexx looked up. "Let's hope that. Here you have the bullets." Alexx handed Calleigh a little paper baggy that felt kind of heavy. "They seem like 9 mils to me"  
Calleigh opened the baggy and looked at the bullets. "Well, they did mean it seriously. These are indeed 9 mils. Hollow Point. I guess they did want him dead."  
Alexx looked at the mushroomed bullets in Calleigh's hand. "Whatever they wanted, this poor man's brains are shot to pulp. I hope you can at least get some information from those bullets."  
Calleigh smiled weakly. "There's no need for that. We know who killed this man. And we know where to look for them. We just also had to know what they use to shoot with."

Horatio listened to Calleigh's report on the bullets, Eric's report on the tire threads and Ryan's report on the hairs. He slowly nodded and looked at Frank. Tripp only nodded back at him, indicating that what Horatio might have thought was probably true, if he was to judge on these reports.  
"We're going to Coconut Grove" Horatio said, finally.

The Hummer parked a few houses down the street, Horatio and Frank slowly walked with their guns drawn towards the house. Somehow, it didn't surprise Horatio to find the front door opened and both the garden and the first floor were totally abandoned. The mafia had left this building, that was for sure.  
While clearing the second floor of the house, Frank discovered a walk-in closet that strangely had been locked. With a fast kick, the door was opened and Horatio and Frank discovered their second victim. The blonde strands of hair were easily recognizable between the cascade of chocolate-brown hair down the victim's back. Valera had been right, the blonde hairs had been from a female victim.  
A young girl with blonde highlights who was bound, probably. Horatio looked at the girl and quickly removed the ropes that bound her.  
"Are you okay?" he asked her. The girl looked up to him.  
"I hope so" she said, after sighing. "Who are you?"  
"I'm Lieutenant Horatio Caine and this is Detective Frank Tripp. We're with the Miami-Dade PD. Where are you from?" Horatio had figured it out right that the 'Ndrangheta had kidnapped someone. And this girl was probably not American, she didn't sound American. Her English sounded like a blend between British English and American English.  
The girl's answer confirmed his thoughts.  
"I'm from the Netherlands. So I'm in Miami, huh?"


	3. Act II

**The Dutch Connection: Act II**

Horatio and Frank together helped the girl on her feet and while Horatio guided her outside, Frank called for an ambulance.

Sitting on the gurney, the girl gazed at the two men standing in front of her. Their questions, like 'are you okay?', 'who are you?', 'Can you tell us what happened?' never reached her conscience, but she understood she had to tell them what had happened, and that she had to trust them. So she began.  
"My name's Marieke de Vries, I'm fifteen years old. I-" Marieke swallowed. "I'll tell you what happened."

_Marieke looked at her father, who sat behind his desk looking at a timetable that told him which shipping was to go to where at what time. She hated having to come with him to his work on her days off from school. It was so boring. It was as if he didn't trust her being home alone. But he always told her it was because he didn't trust 'the people', as he called them. Marieke had no idea what he meant, but she understood that there were things her father knew about that were potentially very dangerous and that every misstep could have a regretful result.  
Luckily, her father's colleagues were much fun, otherwise she'd probably die of boredom. The atmosphere in the office seemed unusually friendly for a container shipping company of this size. However – this office wasn't that big, actually, the company it belonged to was – perhaps this atmosphere was just very normal. After all, Marieke had nothing to compare it to._

"Looking back now, everything suddenly makes sense. The ritual 'bubbling' with good clients-" Marieke paused for a moment. Horatio didn't dare asking what 'bubbling' meant, because somehow he didn't want to know the answer.  
"Oh, the office in Italy of which there is no record, and the many, many dinners for employees of the office and the way too quick agreements." Marieke went on. "I though them to be normal. I guess they're not."

_Since her mother had been killed in a mysterious car crash years ago, Marieke's father had insisted on taking her with him on her days off.  
"Waar is Antonio?" asked Marieke._

"That means 'where's Antonio?'" Marieke explained.

_Her father looked up from the computer. Antonio, who wished to be jus__t called Anton, was the employee of this office that Marieke liked the most. He was funny and his lifestyle was stylish but extravagant. He always smoked cigars, always drank cognac and even though he was happily married to his wife, with whom he had three kids, he always had mistresses here and there. Normally, Marieke would be very much against such adultery, but Antonio's wife didn't seem to care too much about it and somehow, he had developed this habit of talking about his mistresses in a very light-hearted way, that somehow always made her laugh. He also used to call her father every once in a while, sometimes with messages like "you wouldn't believe what a beauty is sitting next to me" and Marieke and her father always knew exactly what would happen between Antonio and the beauty next.  
Somehow, her father seemed really glad that Marieke and Antonio did get along this well. Actually, Marieke was one of very few people allowed to call him Antonio. Some colleagues of her father had said jokingly that she'd be next in Antonio's long line of mistresses, but Marieke knew that would never be that way. After all, Antonio was now around forty, she fifteen, and his mistresses were normally around twenty-five. By the time she'd turn twenty-five, the bond with Antonio would probably be that of two very good friends, nothing more. Trust.  
Marieke's father looked up from the computer to answer Marieke's question.  
__"Geen idee. Maar ik heb hem ook nodig, dus als je 'm zou willen zoeken zou ik daar erg blij mee zijn. Zeg maar tegen 'm dat ik 'm wil spreken."_

"I wouldn't know. But I need him as well, so if you'd like to look for him I'd be really happy with that. Just tell him I'd like to speak to him." Marieke quickly translated.

_Marieke nodded and walked off._

"And from there, it's pretty much a blur" Marieke told Horatio and Frank. "I mean, I remember seeing Antonio take a gun from a wooden crate in the warehouse" she swallowed. "And I remember two shots, but that's all" Marieke shook her head. "I think he killed someone and that when I walked in, the only thing he could think of doing was getting rid of me by taking me here. What I don't understand was why he didn't kill me"  
She now looked up, tears in her eyes.  
"I think he couldn't because he knew you that well" Horatio softly said. Marieke nodded, almost invisibly. Then, she suddenly petrified.  
"Dad! I – oh my god. I hope they didn't do anything to dad!" she whispered. Horatio looked at Tripp, who walked off a bit to call for a number of the police of the Netherlands. After all, it'd be pretty strange if Marieke's father hadn't reported her missing yet. Horatio looked at Marieke.  
"Marieke" he seemed to be struggling with the pronunciation but got it right eventually. "I'm sure your father is all right. After all, you saw things, he didn't."  
Marieke nodded. "I hope so."  
"Is there anything else you saw or heard?" Horatio asked. Marieke closed her eyes to concentrate.  
"Well, some people where having an argument, 'cause they were shouting at each other. One was shouting 'C'è stato un incidente', and then some other person shouted 'Che cosa problema è?' and then another person shouted 'questo non te riguarda per niente'."  
"You have a pretty good memory" Horatio said. Marieke smiled.  
"I don't. Antonio taught me similar lines. 'C'è stato un incidente' means that an accident as they call it happened, 'che cosa problema è?' means 'what's the problem' and 'questo non te riguarda per niente' is my personal favorite. It means 'it's none of your business'. There was more shouting in Italian, but that I couldn't understand."  
Marieke closed her eyes again. "Gunshots, again. Those were really frightening. But then I heard them talking about things that had been done and things that were supposed to be done. I guess someone tried ratting them out."

Frank listened to the number that someone gave him and wrote it down. Oh-oh-three-one-three-four-three-five-seven-eight-eight-four-four. He hated these international numbers. Slowly, he dialed the number. A woman's voice answered him.  
"Goedenavond, Korps Landelijke Politie Diensten, met Carla. Hoe kan ik u helpen?"  
Frank didn't understand one thing this Carla said, but was pretty sure she could understand English as well.  
"Good afternoon, miss. This is Detective Frank Tripp, Miami-Dade Police Department."  
The woman's voice immediately changed to English with only a small accent. "Good afternoon, Detective. How can I help you?"  
"During an investigation, the MDPD found a girl, fifteen years old, and she says she's from the Netherlands. I'm wondering whether her father has reported her missing."  
"Okay, I'm listening. Where is she from?"  
"Rotterdam" Tripp answered.

Horatio looked at the fifteen-year-old. Something about her bothered him.  
"You're really calm for a victim of an abduction" he said, when he figured out what was bothering him. Marieke looked at him.  
"Lieutenant, I was abducted while I could have been killed. The abductor was someone I trusted and still trust and all I can remember are gunshots and waking up in that walk-in closet. Antonio was the one taking care for me here, he gave me food and water, he told me some things that wouldn't put the famiglia, as he called it, in any danger and he said that everything would turn out fine."  
Horatio nodded. Meanwhile, Tripp walked back to them.  
"What did they say?" Horatio asked. Tripp looked at him and then at Marieke.  
"Marieke" Frank had evidently more difficulties pronouncing the name, "your father is perfectly fine, and he wonders when you'll be back. I told him that you'd be back as soon as possible."  
Marieke nodded, letting him know she understood. Horatio looked at Marieke.  
"You'd need a passport to get on a flight back" he said. Marieke nodded.  
"I know. Wait" she searched the pockets of her jacket for a moment, and then she showed him a burgundy-colored booklet with the words 'Europese Unie – Koninkrijk der Nederlanden' and the crest of the Netherlands printed in gold on it. "All people from the ages fourteen and up are supposed to carry their passport or at least an ID card with him or her in the Netherlands" she said.  
Horatio nodded. "Okay, then that problem's solved. Marieke, this officer -" Horatio pointed at an officer standing next to him, "will take you to PD"  
Marieke nodded and got on her feet. She started humming a song that she couldn't get out of her head. Frank looked at her.  
"I'm sorry" Marieke said. "It's the Tarantella. Antonio kept playing the Tarantella from 'The Godfather' on a radio in this room."  
"I thought I recognized it" Frank answered. "That's that song from the wedding in the beginning of part one, isn't it?"  
Marieke nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, it is! It's my favorite movie." Her face now turned to a little sadder expression. "I really should have recognized the true nature of the office sooner"

**A/N: **I'm sorry I had to insert this many Dutch and Italian phrases, but I needed it to have a bit of an international character. I hope y'all liked it!


	4. Act III

**A/N: **Forget things like visums and stuff that they should have arranged. Let's assume I just didn't write it down but it did happen, okay? Oh, and I'm sorry for some of the foul words I used. Some of it is just part of the daily vocabulary of some people, so…

**The Dutch Connection: Act III**

The airport was no different of any other airport in the world. Grey tiled floors, white walls, customs, security – the whole chabang. While passing customs and walking through some orange-y colored slide doors, Horatio checked carefully if Marieke was still okay. He felt really sorry for this poor girl.

_All that was left of the fifteen-year-old was this girl sitting in the room that was normally used for interrogations. The officer in charge of taking care of her told Horatio tha__t she had completely cracked down. Relief, Horatio hoped, because otherwise this girl would have a trauma for the rest of her life. He quietly opened the door to the room and sat down next to Marieke.  
"Hey" he said softly. Marieke looked up.  
"Hey" she whispered.  
"Wanna tell me what's up?" Horatio asked. Marieke buried her face in her arms.  
"I feel so awful. How could Antonio do that to me? Why? Why? And why, for god's sake, why did they take me all the way to here?"  
"Sssh. It's okay. You're safe now."  
"I know I'm safe!" Marieke snapped. Then she softened again. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's just – I feel so betrayed! He was a friend of my dad, a friend of mine, and he did such thing. It's so hard… and now I'm supposed to go back but I don't know how because I'm not allowed to fly by myself yet, because I'm not yet sixteen… And I'm told that my dad's okay but I don't know that for sure and what if they do something to him now?"  
Horatio grabbed the girl's hand. "The police are protecting him."  
A short and snappy, rather disapproving laugh came from Marieke's mouth. "The police. Do you have any idea of the incompetence of the Dutch police? I mean, they suck. Really suck. All they can do is write parking tickets all day long."  
Horatio's cell phone rang. Horatio looked at Marieke and quickly said 'excuse me' before walking out of the room.  
Marieke looked at the Lieutenant. He was trying to help her, but didn't he see that that was impossible? Was it really that hard to see that there was hardly any way out? With her finger she drew small figures on the glass surface of the table. These figures only existed for half a second before they evaporated. How come that everything she worked so hard for, school, friends, her hobbies, all seemed so meaningless now?  
Horatio re-entered the room and looked at the girl. "Marieke? I'll fly you home."_

The mass of people waiting for relatives, friends or god knows what didn't pay any attention to the red-haired lieutenant and the fifteen-year-old. Only a small group of people did – a tall man with grey streaks in his brownish hair, to whom Marieke immediately ran and three others. One of the others was a man who identified himself as 'Detective Johan Verkerk, Police Rotterdam-Rijnmond'. Horatio shook the detective's hands and then nodded at Marieke and her father.  
"What do I have to know?"  
The detective shooed the two other men, security guards, away and looked at Horatio.  
"Mr. Caine" – Horatio didn't have any jurisdiction here – "First we want to get the De Vries family safe at home and then I could really use your help with this. If you'd like to."  
Horatio nodded. "I'd like to."

Detective Verkerk belonged to a special police unit that was here called 'Eenheid Geoorganiseerde Misdaad' – The Organized Crime Unit. He told Horatio that there were hardly people who knew that the Calabrese mafia – 'Ndrangheta – was active in the port of Rotterdam. Actually, only those who walked around with their eyes open while working in some of the companies in the port could guess. But that it also actually took only someone with half a brain to figure out that something was wrong there. After all, it was commonly known that the 'Ndrangheta imported 30 of it's cocaine into Europe via Rotterdam. And if this many shipments of cocaine were intercepted per year, the 'Ndragheta must surely have some people hanging around there. Amsterdam was a well-known city for it's mafia-influence, but the port of Rotterdam? That was the very last place to pop into people's minds when thinking about organized crime in the Netherlands.

Horatio listened carefully to Verkerk's words. The weren't many things he truly, sincerely hated, but one of the things he hated sincerely was drugs. He lost his brother because of it. He had seen so many people destroy themselves with it. And by every word of Verkerk, Horatio became more and more determined to catch some of the people involved.

"Good" Verkerk concluded eventually. "Mr. Caine… I'd like you to meet my colleague, Jantine Ras. She has been tracking down shipments for over five years now and she has discovered quite an impressive pattern. You see, the cocaine is manufactured in Brazil, Colombia or Venezuela." Verkerk pointed at a large computer monitor hanging on a wall, which displayed a map of the world with lots and lots of red lines in it. "Then this coke is sometimes shipped to Florida for some of the coke dealers there and most of the times, the coke is being repacked and then it's off to Europe. Spain, mainly, Italy, for a bit, France, Belgium, and of course the port of Rotterdam. 'Ndrangheta often sends someone to go on these ships to those South-American countries and to Florida to make sure everything goes all right. And there's the thing – we're thinking that 'Ndrangheta is very much involved in the shipping companies here. We have witnesses telling us that some things run too smooth there or that the rituals are strange, but it's pretty hard to arrest someone on weird habits, isn't it?"  
Horatio could only nod and agree. He then looked at Jantine. "Miss Ras, the shipment that involved Marieke de Vries's abduction, what was the route?"  
Jantine smiled and after a few taps on the keyboard, one of the lines to Florida turned green.  
"This one. Marieke was taken by someone we only know as Antonio. He seems to work for the same company as the girl's father, but there's no track of him there. No record." Jantine said in a soft and sweet voice that one wouldn't expect from someone working for an Organized Crime Unit.  
Horatio nodded.   
"Let's go, I want to show you something else" Verkerk said. Horatio quietly followed Johan Verkerk to a huge archive that contained thousands and thousands of files, videotapes, CDs, DVDs, cassette tapes, everything. Verkerk grabbed a cassette tape and walked over to a small taperecorder. A noise filled the archives and Horatio listened closely to hear what was on the tape. After a minute, the noise disappeared almost entirely and a clear voice was audible.

_"Tony, it's me"  
"Sfortunato, Seppe, why are you calling me?"  
"Listen, I need you to guide to our land of palms and swamps. I got a few boxes of good vino for you."  
"Shut up. I don't guide no vino and I certainly don't want your vino. You can shove it up your ass."  
"Tony, it's really good vino. My manager liked it himself."_

More noise. Verkerk pressed 'stop' and looked at Horatio.  
"You understand what they're talking about, don't you?"  
Horatio nodded. "Cocaine and the shipment."  
Verkerk nodded as well and pressed 'play' again.

"_Me"  
"Tony, you fool! You son of a bitch, why did you beat him at that golf game? I told you to play nice!"  
"Hey, he asked for it! And by the way, I only beat him by two points."  
"Still, I hope for your sakes he doesn't take it too hard. Otherwise your manager should really contact his friend in the AVR."  
"I already put the garbage outside, so there's no need for the AVR."  
"'Course there is. There's always need for the AVR. They gotta dispose the garbage, don't they?"  
"This garbage is put outside and there's no need of disposing it."_

Horatio looked at Verkerk.  
"What's the AVR?"  
"Afval Verwerking Rijnmond. Waste management"  
Horatio nodded as to gesture that he understood.  
"Did they talk about what I think they talked about?"  
Verkerk smiled a little. "Depends on what you think"  
"I think" Horatio paused. "that they talked about the murder Marieke told me about, and that Antonio took care of the witness – Marieke."  
Verkerk nodded. "That can very well be. Listen to this one. It's the very last. AIVD didn't send it to us until this morning, right after I was off to the airport. I haven't even heard it myself."

"_What?"  
"You already back home? That's quick. What went wrong?"  
"There was a small detour. We were guided back to where we left in the first place."  
"So no vino?"  
"No vino."  
"Right. Tony, what's on your planning for tonight?"  
"Nothing. Why?"  
"I'd like to take you and your family to the opera"  
"When?"  
"I'll pick you up after dinner"_

Verkerk looked at Horatio. "That's… some amazing information on this tape."  
"How come?"  
"There is no opera in Rotterdam. They're meeting tonight. All of 'em."  
Horatio just looked at Verkerk.  
"This is huge" Verkerk went on. "This is – after tonight, organized crime will have another meaning for the people of Rotterdam."

THE END.


End file.
